Archive for the ‘Sonia Sotomayor’ Category

When I go to the grocery store, there is frequently someone outside asking me for spare change. When I go to a fast food restaurant, there is more than occasionally someone outside asking me for spare change (although, it’s happened quite a few times that I’ve had people INSIDE these places asking me for spare change, too). When I get gas, there is often someone outside asking me for spare change.

Here is my response to them:

“Let me ask you a question: why should I give you anything?”

That’s a head scratcher for most of the people I deal with, I mean, beyond the pure “entitlement” mindset of, “Because you OWE me for being so wonderful.”

“Because I’m a human being,” I often hear.

“What does that mean to me?” I demand. “According to the theory of evolution, human beings are nothing more than a random-chance accident and you are nothing more than a slightly smarter version of a monkey. According to Darwinism, the stronger ought to survive and the weaker ought to have the decency to perish and get the hell out of the stronger’s way. When the lion or the wolf kills the weakest members of a herd, environmentalists point out that they’re actually doing the herd a service by winnowing out the genetically inferior members who would otherwise undermine the herd. Frankly, according to Darwinsim, I ought to be taking what little you DO have instead of weakening my own prospects to help an inferior.

So again, why should I give you anything?”

Well, as it so happens, there is only ONE correct answer. And here it is:

“Because I’m a human being created in the image of God, and because God loves human beings as demonstrated in His sending His Son to seek and to save me even when I’m lost. And because Jesus cares for the poor, you should care for the poor and help me.”

And with that lesson – along with my pointing out that I am NOT giving a damn thing to you because I’m a good person, but ONLY because I’m following the example of my Savior and Lord, Jesus – I buy them food (I don’t give money to self-destructive people who will only use it to further destroy themselves with drugs and alcohol and cigarettes).

So here’s the question: is there any connection between “morality” and “religion,” or is “morality” whatever the hell Obama or the government says it is?

In my own personal case, and very definitely in the case of orthodox/genuine Christian theology, morality has EVERYTHING to do with religion.

Let me get in the face of atheists here who would interrupt me and say that they’re atheists and they’re “moral.” Bullcrap. And here’s why: if you are an atheist and a situation arises and a lie or doing something wrong would benefit you and you don’t think you would get caught, why wouldn’t you do what would benefit you? And your answer as an atheist MUST be entirely subjective and completely arbitrary. Lying, for example, is “unchristian.” But how would lying by “unatheist?” What IS “atheist morality” such that if you do X you are a bad atheist??? And of course there is nothing, because atheism and morality have nothing whatsoever to do with one another. Whereas as a Christian, as a religious person, as someone who believes in God, I would tell the truth or do the moral thing in a given situation even to my own immediate harm because I BELIEVE THAT GOD REWARDS GOOD AND PUNISHES EVIL AT JUDGMENT DAY. WHICH ATHEISTS DON’T BELIEVE.

George Washington said, ““Of all the habits and dispositions which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion…reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

So yeah, the view that morality comes from anywhere OTHER than religion is TREASON. Barack Obama and the Democrat Party are traitors to America according to the father of our country and our greatest American hero.

John Adams pointed out that the Constitution was written ONLY for people who believed in God and received their morality from Him: “We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Samuel Adams put it this way: “Religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness.”

Patrick Henry had this to say: “The great pillars of all government and of social life [are] virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor…and this alone, that renders us invincible.”

You need to understand that when it comes to ObamaCare, “morality” is quite simply whatever the hell Obama says it is. “Morality” is a game of “Simon Says,” and Obama has appointed himself as “Simon.”

If morality can be completely and fundamentally severed from religion, then what IS morality? It is nothing more than whatever Obama or whoever is in charge of the government says it is. And nothing more. That ought to terrify you, if you aren’t a complete moral idiot.

Here’s another question: Can the government grant Hobby Lobby a waiver when it comes to forcing them to provide the four forms of “birth control” (read “abortifacients”) given that Hobby Lobby provides coverage for the sixteen forms of birth control that DON’T actually kill fertilized eggs (babies)???

Given that Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The purpose of the LAW was to prevent any laws that substantially burdened a person’s free exercise of religion., doesn’t it seem like Obama and Democrats ought to do anything possible to prevent forcing people to perform abortions or fund abortions against their religiously-informed consciences?

Consider all the other damn waivers Obama has issued in hopes of keeping his Democrats in power in the Senate. There is clearly another way around this because Obama has found another way at least 25 times when it came to protecting his Democrats from the consequences of their evil socialist health care takeover law.

Coincidentally, Schrader filed his bill the same day Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified on Capitol Hill that, “there is no delay beyond March 31st.” Of course, that wasn’t the first, or last, time she made that claim. And, as our colleagues over at Wonkblog explain, the administration is adamant that it’s not so much an extension as an accommodation.

Heritage provides a montage of such assurances as well as some well-deserved mockery:

No, it cannot happen. It will not happen. The Obama administration absolutely, positively will NOT extend the deadline to sign up for Obamacare.

This isn’t even a laugh line anymore. It’s just an eye roller. And how silly these guys look now:

“We have no plans to extend the open enrollment period. In fact, we don’t actually have the statutory authority to extend the open enrollment period in 2014.” — Health and Human Services (HHS) official Julie Bataille, March 11

“Once that 2014 open enrollment period has been set, they are set permanently.” – HHS official Michael Hash, March 11

“March 31st is the deadline for enrollment. You’ve heard us make that clear.” – Press Secretary Jay Carney, March 21

There was no delay…until there was. The Washington Post reported last night that March 31 is not, in fact, the final word. To get more time, you tell the government that you haven’t been able to sign up yet:

Under the new rules, people will be able to qualify for an extension by checking a blue box on HealthCare.gov to indicate that they tried to enroll before the deadline. This method will rely on an honor system; the government will not try to determine whether the person is telling the truth.

My favorite there is Obama mouthpiece Jay Carney, who says, “March 31st is the deadline for enrollment. You’ve heard us make that clear.”

Until he made it clear that Obama had tooted his ObamaHorn and imperiously re-issued “morality” to say that what would be wrong was now right and what is right is no longer wrong.

So it turns out the answer mimicked Obama’s campaign slogan: “Absolutely NOT” turned into “Yes, we can!”

And they could have protected Hobby Lobby from violating their consciences, too. They simply chose not to do so. Kind of like homosexuals had the right to marry whatever adult of the opposite sex who would have them and they chose not to exercise their right. Which is another way of saying that marriage between one man and one woman doesn’t violate anybody’s “rights.” It merely rightly defines what marriage IS.

So ObamaCare didn’t HAVE to substantially burden Christians who wanted to exercise their basic rights to form a corporation. Obama merely wanted to violate Christians’ rights because that’s the kind of demonic man he is.

There is no question whatsoever that Barack Obama is violating the Constitution and violating the law. He is imposing a substantial burden on religious freedom when there are very clearly ways to have avoided this fascist mess.

My point in the above is to simply demonstrate that Obama didn’t have to force Hobby Lobby to violate its conscience, either as individuals or as a corporation. There was another way, because as Obama has now proven over and over and over again, there has been another way around EVERY ASPECT of this idiotic failed law. And so there was a way around this too.

Here’s another thing: nobody knows what the Supreme Court is going to do on this one. It’s basically like, “Let’s spin the wheel of chance to find out what the Constitution means today!”

Laws no longer mean what they say in this country. Which is another way of saying they no longer mean ANYTHING.

America is no longer a nation of laws. Obama abrogates the law as he sees fit and simply issues unconstitutional waivers and unconstitutional extensions. It is a nation under a Fuehrer, rather than under God as we mouth in our Pledge of Allegiance.

And that’s important because that’s what Hitler did: he had his minions pledge allegiance directly to HIM. That’s what we all might as well be doing now, under Obama and his God damn America.

Democrats are liars without shame, without honor, without virtue, without integrity of any kind whatsoever. They are falsely claiming that Hobby Lobby is somehow denying women birth control when in fact they provide SIXTEEN different forms of birth control on the health insurance that they offer. This isn’t about health care OR birth control; it is about abortion and Obama wanting to demonically force Christians to violate their faith and their conscience and fund the murder of ANOTHER 55 million innocent human beings.

What does the Bible say about abortion and where babies come from?

“For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.” — Psalm 139:13-16

I stand for human LIFE. Which is another way of saying that I stand AGAINST this demon-possessed president and his demon-possessed Democrat Party and their genocide that is already more than nine times as murderous as Hitler’s.

And I stand for America as “One nation under God” as opposed to “One nation WITHOUT God” as godless Democrats are now demanding.

So, again, Democrats are demon-possessed LIARS for saying this is about a corporation not being a “person” and therefore not able to have religion. Because it is a FACT that Democrats don’t want ANY PERSON to be able to practice his or her religion unless it is a “religion” of demons.

“Those employers could choose not to give health insurance and pay not that high a penalty – not that high a tax,” Sotomayor said.

Clement said Hobby Lobby would pay more than $500 million per year in penalties, but Kagan disagreed.

“No, I don’t think that that’s the same thing, Mr. Clement,” Kagan said. “There’s one penalty that is if the employer continues to provide health insurance without this part of the coverage, but Hobby Lobby would choose not to provide health insurance at all.

So how can this be about “health care” when these liberal judges are literally telling Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties NOT to provide health care, but to just dump their poor bastard employees into the sewer of ObamaCare???

The crazy thing is, as Christians, Hobby Lobby would ALSO have to violate their consciences to refuse to provide their employees health care.

Liberals are evil, pure and simple. This isn’t about “health care.” This is about liberals trying “to control the people.”

This is about Obama and his government having a messiah complex, pure and simple.

We’re about to lose what little is left of America. It’s all up to the throw of the dice in the Supreme Court where a bunch of unelected judges get to sit and dictate what “religion” is and what “morality” is.

Obama’s attack against the Supreme Court of the United States follows his attack against the United States Congress. And when a president attacks and demonizes the two separate branches that are co-equal with him according to the United States Constitution, that president is a fascist.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court justices strongly suggested Wednesday that they are ready to allow Arizona to enforce part of a controversial state law requiring police officers to check the immigration status of people they think are in the country illegally.

Liberal and conservative justices reacted skeptically to the Obama administration’s argument that the state exceeded its authority when it made the records check, and another provision allowing suspected illegal immigrants to be arrested without a warrant, part of the Arizona law aimed at driving illegal immigrants elsewhere.

It was unclear what the court would do with other aspects of the law that have been put on hold by lower federal courts. The other blocked provisions make it a state crime for immigrants not to have immigration registration papers and for illegal immigrants to seek work or hold a job.

Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the law two years ago, was on hand for the final argument of the court’s term.

The latest high court clash between the administration and states turns on the extent of states’ role in immigration policy, which is essentially under the federal government’s control.

Verrilli tried to persuade the justices that they should view the law in its entirety and inconsistent with federal immigration policy. He said the records check would allow the state to “engage effectively in mass incarceration” of undocumented immigrants.

But Chief Justice John Roberts was among those on the court who took issue with Verrilli’s characterization of the check of immigration status, saying the state merely wants to notify federal authorities it has someone in custody who may be in the U.S. illegally. “It seems to me that the federal government just doesn’t want to know who’s here illegally and who’s not,” Roberts said.

Chief Justice John Roberts interrupted Verilli to say, “It is not an effort to preempt federal law, it is an effort to enforce the law.” Roberts added that even if Arizona detains an undocumented immigrant “It’s still [the federal government’s] decision” who to deport.

Not surprisingly, Justice Scalia sided almost entirely with Arizona and ventured to an extreme where not even the state of Arizona seemed uninterested in spending much time. Scalia argued in court that the states not only have the right to enforce federal immigration law but also have the right to wholly close their borders to undocumented immigrants.

Even Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was the most sympathetic to the government’s claims, seemed unconvinced. “I’m terribly confused by your answer,” she said, as Verrilli attempted to explain why it’s okay for states and the federal government to cooperate when the federal government takes the initiative but not when a state moves to mandate their cops to do so.

Obama has stuck his thumb in the eyes of the United States Congress. He has stuck his thumb in the eyes of the Supreme Court. He has stuck his thumb in the eyes of the states. He has repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn’t give one flying damn about the Constitution.

I’ve written about the Arizona law a number of times before (from newest to oldest):

After introducing who Cloward and Piven were and what they tried to do to implode and destroy America from within, I stated:

On my own view, Obama has a “win we win, lose we win” strategy. To wit, the Obama administration and the Democrat Party are pursuing incredibly risky policies across the board. If the country and the economy somehow manages to survive these measures (which I would compare to a man surviving a poisoning), Obama and the Democrats will claim victory. If, on the other hand, the entire national system collapses due to these shockingly terrible policies, the liberals believe that a terrified, hungry public will turn to the government for help – and allow the statists to restructure the nation into a completely socialist system.

The Obama administration, on my view, consists of a collective of fiscal sociopaths. They don’t even care about the harm that they are doing, as long as they accomplish their self-serving objective of statism, in which they ultimately wield the levers of totalitarian power.

On top of the disastrous impact on patient care would be the disastrous impact on the national economy. The health care system that the Senate Democrats would impose on Americans would cost at least $2.5 trillion every ten years following its initial roll-out. How much more can we afford? How many more cards can we add to our house before the whole thing comes crashing down?

Why would anybody want to impose a system that is so terribly bad, and which will cost so terribly much?

When you think of the trillions in spending that this administration has already accumulated, and then add the additional $200 billion a year (and $1,761 per family) cost of Obama’s cap-and-trade energy fiasco, you can’t help but begin to wonder if there is an intentional determination to overwhelm our system and “push society into crisis and economic collapse.”

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”

PHILADELPHIA — The cost of health insurance skyrocketed in 2011 after several years of relatively small increases, according to a report released Tuesday by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in California and the Health Research and Educational Trust in Chicago.

Prices rose 9 percent for family coverage, with the average family premium reaching $15,073 and employees picking up $4,129 of that cost.

In 2010, family premium prices rose 3 percent.

The premium increase far outstrips the 2.1 percent increase in workers’ wages and the 3.2 percent increase in the general inflation rate from April 2010 to April 2011.

“This year’s nine percent increase in premiums is especially painful for workers and employers struggling through a weak recovery,” Kaiser foundation president Drew Altman said in a statement.

But, but, Obama said he was going to bend the cost curve DOWN. He promised.

Every single thing that Barack Obama promised and every single thing that every single Democrat who shoved that communist piece of crap though Congress said was an abject lie.

And after EXACTLY what conservatives predicted would happened in fact happened, what do Democrats say? It’s the insurance companies’ faults.

Well, let me tell you something: by their “logic,” if I walk up to you and punch you in the face and you hit me back, I’m not to blame in any way; you’re reaction was YOURS. In the same way, if Obama and Democrats force insurance companies to provide all sorts of things that are going to cost them BILLIONS, it’s entirely their fault if they raised their premiums. And the Democrats punching them in the face had nothing whatsoever to do with them punching YOU back in your wallet.

Democrats are the Party of Evil. Hate me all you want for stating it that way, but it is the truth.

D. James Kennedy warned, “Watch out, Grandma and Grandpa! Because the generation that survived abortion will one day come after YOU.” And Democrats have tried to ensure that day with ObamaCare and its 160 death panels:

If Republicans can’t stop ObamaCare from being fully implemented, the soaring costs that we are already seeing will continue unabated. And because of Democrats, society will look at the out-of-control health care costs, and then they will look at the fact that fully 80% of health care resources are consumed by the elderly, and it will vote to murder grandma and grandpa just as surely as they voted to murder all of those innocent babies.

Either that, or we will have to choose instead to bankrupt America via the ObamaCare Cloward and Piven strategy so that Democrat-communists (yes, you read that right) can have the Marxism they’ve wanted ever since JFK died.

The 1611 King James Version was written quite a while before the global warming panic, and Jesus said in Luke 21: 25-26, “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.”

That’s panic, folks. Over climate phenomena that we know will get worse and worse. Predicted 2,000 years ago by Jesus Himself.

We’ve had deadly flash floods, wildfires, hurricanes. We’ve had deadly droughts combined with extreme heat that in turn have caused enormous livestock and crop losses, and let’s not forget the giant wildfires that have ravaged several Western states. We had over 540 people lose their lives in tornadoes ALONE this year. We’ve even had earthquakes in the New York area. That quake caused the North Anna nuclear plant in Virginia to shut down due to damage. Earth quakes in New York and Virginia?

You look at every aspect of America and everything American, and we’re on our way down under Obama. And it’s going to end with America falling down hard and staying down for good.

Do you want more God damn America? Keep voting for Obama and keep voting for demonic Democrats and you’ll be sure to get more of it in spades.

Once we go bankrupt – and Democrats will settle for nothing less than total American bankruptcy – enter the Antichrist and enter the mark of the beast.

The hoofbeats of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse are getting closer and closer. It’s nearly too late as it is.

Whalen: Umm, well there were two larger men, one looked kind of Hispanic but I’m not really sure. And the other one entered and I didn’t see what he looked like at all.

And even then she didn’t say that the men were black.

But that doesn’t stop the REAL racists from attacking her.

Lucia Whalen tearfully said, “I was called racist – I was scorned and ridiculed because of things I never said.” And the people who made her cry, the people who attacked a woman who performed a public service by getting involved and calling the police when she witnessed a possible crime in progress, are the ones who are racist.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — The woman who dialed 911 to report a possible break-in at the home of black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. said Thursday she was pained to be wrongly labeled a racist based on words she never said and hoped the recently released recording of the call would put the controversy to rest.

With a trembling voice, Lucia Whalen, 40, said she was out walking to lunch in Gates’ Cambridge neighborhood near Harvard University when an elderly woman without a cell phone stopped her because she was concerned there was a possible burglary in progress.

Whalen was vilified as a racist on blogs after a police report said she described the possible burglars as “two black males with backpacks.”

Tapes of the call released earlier this week revealed that Whalen did not mention race. When pressed by a dispatcher on whether the men were white, black or Hispanic, she said one of them might have been Hispanic.

“Now that the tapes are out, I hope people can see that I tried to be careful and honest with my words,” Whalen said. “It never occurred to me that the way I reported what I saw be analyzed by an entire nation.”

Cambridge police Commissioner Robert Haas acknowledged that the police report contains a reference to race, but said the report is merely a summary of events. The arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, has said his information on the race of the suspects came during a brief encounter with Whalen outside Gates’ house; she contradicted that Thursday, saying she made no such description.

The arrest of Gates for disorderly conduct in his own home by a white police officer sparked a national debate over racial profiling and police conduct. The controversy intensified when President Obama said police “acted stupidly” when they arrested Gates, his friend.

Gates has said he was outraged and has demanded an apology from Crowley; Crowley said he followed protocol and responded to Gates’ “tumultuous behavior” appropriately.

Whalen, a Harvard alumni magazine employee who is a first-generation Portuguese-American, said she lived in fear during the immediate aftermath of the arrest when she was dogged for comment and maligned based on the information attributed to her in the police report.

“The criticism at first was so painful I was frankly afraid to say anything. People called me racist. Some even said threatening things that made me fear for my safety,” said Whalen, whose husband, Paul, put his hand on her shoulder in comfort her as she spoke. “I knew the truth, but I didn’t speak up right away because I did not want to add to the controversy.”

She said she felt more comfortable speaking publicly after the tapes were released. She refused to answer any questions about the police report or what she saw that day.

“I am proud to have been raised by two loving parents who instilled in me values including love one another, be kind to strangers and do not judge people based on race, ethnicity or any other feature than their character,” she said. […]

“I was called racist and I was a target of scorn and ridicule because of the things I never said,” she said. “The criticism hurt me as a person, but it also hurt the community of Cambridge.”

Lucia Whalen was raised by her parents to love one another, to be kind to strangers, and to not judge people based on their race, ethnicity, or any other feature but their character. Martin Luther King would have applauded her as everything he wanted to see in an American.

But the “Civil Rights” movement was long-ago hijacked by people who actively despise Martin Luther King’s prescription:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Unfortunately, we now have men like Henry Louis Gates, Jeremiah Wright, and the close personal friend of both men, Barack Obama. And they are men who seem to have King’s standard turned completely around.

Watch Henry Louis Gates and tell me that he isn’t consumed by race and by racism, as opposed to concentrating upon the content of anybody’s character:

GATES: Probably. I didn’t know until — in 1959 we were watching Mike Wallace’s documentary called “The Hate that Hate Produced.” It was about the Nation of Islam and I couldn’t believe — I mean, Malcolm X was talking about the white man was the devil and standing up in white people’s faces and telling them off. It was great. I mean, it’s what black people did behind closed doors, but they would never do it in — I mean, they were too vulnerable to do it, say, where they worked, at the paper mill or downtown, as we would call it. And here was a guy who had the nerve to do that, and I think if I had been a character in a cartoon, my eyes would have gone Doing! — like this. I couldn’t believe it. As I sat cowering in a corner of our living room, I glanced over at Mama and her face was radiant. I mean, this smile — beatific smile started to transform her face. And she said quite quietly, “Amen.” And then she said, “All right now,” and she sat up and she said, “Yes.”

Gates describes his and his mother’s experience with hard-core racism – the labeling of an entire race of people as “devils” – as a spiritual epiphany bordering on a religious experience. And what chance did Sgt. James Crowley have when a 911 call reporting a possible break-in have when he encountered such fanatic racist zeal?

And there’s absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Sgt. James Crowley – who appears to be a model police officer – thinks anywhere nearly as poorly of black men as Henry Louis Gates thinks of white men. And it has been Gates who has made the incident not only racial but racist since the moment he first laid eyes on Sgt. Crowley. Because Gates was a racist since long before the two men ever met.

Describing Crowley as an “outstanding police officer,” the president said: “Even when you’ve got a police officer who has a fine track record on racial sensitivity, interactions between police officers and the African American community can sometimes be fraught with misunderstanding.”

That’s nice, Barry. Are you saying that even an outstanding (white) police officer is still racially biased, or are you saying that the African American community is so trapped in racism – like Obama’s own close personal friend ‘Skip’ Gates – that it doesn’t really matter how racially sensitive a white officer is?

“The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know – there’s a reaction in her that’s been bred into our experiences that don’t go away and sometimes come out in the wrong way and that’s just the nature of race in our society.”

Maybe Obama is saying that Sgt. Crowley, as a “typical white person,” has his racism “bred into him”? (Didn’t Jimmy the Greek get fired for saying something about racial “breeding”?). Perhaps THAT is why Obama was so quick to jump to the conclusion of racial bias – even right after admitting that he didn’t know any of the facts of the case – in his now infamous press conference?

Let us not forget, in the first Jeremiah Wright sermon Barack Obama ever heard he heard Wright describe a world where “where white folks’ greed runs a world in need.“ And something clicked for Obama so powerfully that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright became his pastor, his mentor, and his spiritual leader for the next 23 years. And Barack Obama voluntarily submitted himself and his family to plenty of sermons demonizing the white man in the years since.

There are racist white people. There are racist black people. And God knows we don’t need any more of either. The question is, who showed their racism in THIS case? Lucia Whalen and Sgt. James Crowley, or Henry Louis Gates and Barack Obama?

This isn’t about whites vs. blacks. Rather, it’s about a terribly bitter attitude that holds on to racism and officially institutes that racism into social policy – this time just in reverse. It’s perfectly okay to embrace naked racism, as long as you are a member of a “minority.” It’s okay to embrace a “wise Latina” who thinks her decisions are better than those of a “white male”; but a white male who thinks the same of a minority be destroyed. It’s okay to have a “Black Caucus” in Congress; just don’t you DARE have a white one. And as a result the racism of that white Boston cop is rightly damned; the racism of a black Harvard African-American Studies professor is wrongly celebrated.

During his campaign, Barack Obama presented himself as a man who transcended race, and stood as the man who could heal any and all divides. He spent 23 years in a racist church that demonized ‘white America,’ but we believed him because he gave a nice speech. He selected a racially biased “wise Latina woman” who trampled on the rights of white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut. But that doesn’t appear to matter, either. And now he’s demonstrating that he holds the same racially biased attitutudes as his “friends.” And he doesn’t transcend anything.

“During the 2008 election, 38 percent of blacks surveyed thought racial discrimination was a serious problem. In the new survey, 55 percent of blacks surveyed believed it was a serious problem, which is about the same level as it was in 2000.”

It is frankly amazing to consider that Barack Obama – the first black president of the United States – hasn’t done ANYTHING to change the racial attitude of African-Americans. And the only possible conclusion is that this president has utterly squandered a truly historic opportunity due to his own increasingly apparent personal inadequacies.

I most certainly think race relations has become a serious problem due to Barack Obama. Because he could not help but drag the ghosts of too many men like Jeremiah Wright and Henry Louis Gates with him. And Barack Obama may have the political intelligence to say the “right” things in the future, but – to quote one of his speeches – they will be “just words.”

When Obama, Gates, and Crowley (who is reportedly bringing a lawyer and a union representative to the meeting) get together for a “beer,” you can bet that there will be a lot of empty and hollow “just words” floating around. This entire meeting is nothing more than a political attempt by Obama to fix his own major screw-up.

And I believe you set up some rules for the conducting of this hearing that are consistent with past hearings, and I believe will allow us to do our work together. And I’ve enjoyed working with you on this process.

I hope this will be viewed as the best hearing this committee has ever had. Why not? We should seek that.

So, I join Chairman Leahy, Judge Sotomayor, in welcoming you here today. And it marks an important milestone in your life. I know your family is proud, and rightly so, and it’s a pleasure to have them with us today.

I expect this hearing and resulting debate will be characterized by a respectful tone, a discussion of serious issues, a thoughtful dialogue and maybe some disagreements. But we worked hard to do that, to set that tone from the beginning.

I’ve been an active litigator in federal courts. I’ve tried cases as a federal prosecutor and as attorney general of Alabama. The Constitution and our great heritage of law I care deeply about. They are the foundation of our liberty and our prosperity.

And this nomination is critical for two important reasons. First, justices on the Supreme Court have great responsibility, hold enormous power and have a lifetime appointment. Just five members can declare the meaning of our Constitution, bending or changing its meaning from what the people intended.

Second, this hearing is important, becauseI believe our legal system is at a dangerous crossroads. Down one path is the traditional American system, so admired around the world, where judges impartially apply the law to the facts without regard to personal views. This is the compassionate system, because it’s the fair system.

In the American legal system, courts do not make law or set policy, because allowing unelected officials to make law would strike at the heart of our democracy.

Here, judges take an oath to administer justice impartially. That oath reads, “I do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and to equal right to the rich and the poor, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me under the Constitution and laws of the United States, so help me God.”

These principles give the traditional system its moral authority, which is why Americans respect and accept the ruling of courts, even when they disagree. Indeed, our legal system is based on a firm belief in an ordered universe and objective truth. The trial is a process by which the impartial and wise judge guides us to truth.

Down the other path lies a brave new world, where words have no true meaning, and judges are free to decide what facts they choose to see. In this world, a judge is free to push his or her own political or social agenda.

I reject that view, and Americans reject that view.

We have seenfederal judges force their political and social agenda on the nation, dictating that the words “under God” be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance and barring students from even private, even silent prayer in schools.

Judges have dismissed the people’s right to their property, saying the government can take a person’s home for the purpose of developing a private shopping center.

Judges have, contrary to longstanding rules of war, created a right for terrorists captured on a foreign battlefield to sue the United States government in our own country.

Judges have cited foreign laws, world opinion and a United Nations resolution to determine that a state death penalty law was unconstitutional.

I’m afraid our system will only be further corrupted, I have to say, as a result of President Obama’s view that in tough cases the critical ingredient for a judge is, quote, “the depth and breadth of one’s empathy,” close quote, as well as his words, quote, “their broader vision of what America should be.”

Like the American people, I have watched this process for a number of years, and I fear that this thinking empathy standard is another step down the road to a liberal, activist, results-oriented, relativistic world, where laws lose their fixed meaning, unelected judges set policy, Americans are seen as members of separate groups rather than as simply Americans, where the constitutional limits on government power are ignored when politicians want to buy out private companies.

I feel we’ve reached a fork in the road, I think, and there are stark differences. I want to be clear. I will not vote for, and no senator should vote for, an individual nominated by any president who is not fully committed to fairness and impartiality toward every person who appears before them.

And I will not vote for, and no senator should vote for, an individual nominated by any president who believes it is acceptable for a judge to allow their personal background, gender, prejudices or sympathies to sway their decision in favor of or against parties before the court.

In my view such a philosophy is disqualified. Such an approach to judging means that the umpire calling the game is not neutral, but instead feels empowered to favor one team over another. Call it empathy, call it prejudice, or call it sympathy, but whatever it is, it’s not law. In truth it’s more akin to politics, and politics has no place in the courtroom.

Some will respond Judge Sotomayor would never say it’s never acceptable for a judge to display prejudice in that case, but I regret to say, Judge, that some of your statements that I’ll outline seem to say that clearly. Let’s look at just a few examples. We’ve seen the video of a Duke University panel, where Judge Sotomayor says, “It’s the Court of Appeals where policy is made, and I know, I know that this is on tape, and I should never say that and should not think that.”

And during a speech 15 years ago, Judge Sotomayor said, quote, “I willingly accept the way the judge must not deny the difference resulting from experience and heritage, but attempt continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate,” close quote.

And in that same speech she said, quote, “My experiences will affect the facts I choose to seek.” Having tried a lot of cases, that particular phrase bothers me. I expect every judge to seek all the facts.

So I think it’s noteworthy that when asked about Judge Sotomayor’s now famous statement that a wise Latina would come to a better conclusion than others, President Obama, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg declined to defend the substance of those remarks.

They each assume the nominee misspoke. But I don’t think it — but the nominee did not misspeak. She is on record as making this statement at least five times over the course of a decade. I am providing a copy of the full text of those speeches for the record.

Others will say that despite these statements, we should look to a nominee’s record, which they characterize as moderate. People said the same of Justice Ginsburg, who is now considered to be one of the most activist members of the Supreme Court in history.

Some senators ignored Justice Ginsburg’s philosophy and focused on the nominee’s judicial opinions. But that is not a good test, because those cases where necessarily restrained by precedent and the threat of reversal from higher courts. On the Supreme Court, those checks on judicial power will be removed, and the judge’s philosophy will be allowed to reach full bloom.

But even as a lower court judge, our nominee has made some troubled rulings. I’m concerned by the Ricci, the New Haven firefighters case recently reversed by the Supreme Court, where she agreed with the city of New Haven’s decision to change the promotion rules in the middle of the game. Incredibly, her opinion consisted of just one substantive paragraph of analysis.

Justice Sotomayor has said she accepts that her opinions, sympathies and prejudices will affect her rulings. Could it be that her time as a leader in the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, a fine organization, provides a clue to her decision against the firefighters?

While the nominee was chair of that fund’s litigation committee, the organization aggressively pursued racial quotas in city hiring and in numerous cases fought to overturn the results of promotion exams. It seems to me that in Ricci, Judge Sotomayor’s empathy for one group of firefighters turned out to be prejudice against another.

That is, of course, the logical flaw in the empathy standard. Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another.

Judge Sotomayor, we will inquire into how your philosophy, which allows subjectivity in the courtroom, affects your decision-making, like, for example, in abortion, where an organization of which you were an active leader argued that the Constitution requires taxpayer money to fund abortions; and gun control, where you recently noted it is settled law that the Second Amendment does not prevent a city or state from barring gun ownership; private property, where you ruled recently that the government could take property from one pharmacy developer and give it to another; capital punishment, where you personally signed a statement opposing the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York because of the inhuman psychological burden it places on the offender and the family.

So I hope the American people will follow these hearings closely. They should learn about the issues and listen to both sides of the argument and — and at the end of the hearing ask, if I must one day go to court, what kind of judge what I wish to hear my case? Do I want a judge that allows his or her social, political or religious views to change the outcome? Or do I want a judge that impartially applies the law to the facts and fairly rules on the merits without bias or prejudice?

It’s our job to determine which side of that fundamental divide the nominee stands.